The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to electrical connectors that electrically couple circuit boards with one another.
Server systems may include several blade server circuit boards that are mounted to a backplane board. In some known server systems, the blade server circuit boards are loaded into a server box in a parallel relationship. For example, the blade server circuit boards are loaded into the server box through a front face of the box so that the blade server circuit boards are approximately parallel with respect to one another. Some known server systems include a motherboard located along a bottom side of the box. The motherboard includes connectors that mate with the blade server circuit boards such that the motherboard and blade circuit server boards are oriented perpendicular to one another. These connectors mate with the blade server circuit boards in directions that are perpendicular to the loading direction of the blade server circuit boards.
For example, the connectors may include a planar connector interface that moves away from the connector and toward a blade server circuit board. The connector interface includes contacts that mate with corresponding contacts on the blade server circuit board. The connector interface abuts against the blade server circuit board in order to mate the contacts with one another. In order to move the connector interface toward and away from the blade server circuit board, an elongated cam shaft that extends through the connector may be rotated. The cam shaft is coupled with cams in the connector that rotate with the cam shaft. As the cams rotate within the connector, the cams engage and drive the connector interfaces away from the connector housing and toward the blade server circuit board to couple with the circuit board.
But, the cams typically are affixed to the cam shafts using set screws and other types of fastening mechanisms. If the cam shaft needs to be replaced with a different cam shaft, replacement of the cam shaft requires an operator to separately detach the fastening mechanisms between the cams and the cam shafts before the cam shaft can be removed. The new cam shaft is placed into the connector and the operator must then re-attach the cams to the cam shaft. The requirement for repeated coupling and decoupling of the cams with the cam shafts may add significant time in replacing cam shafts in server systems that require the replacement of several cam shafts.
A need exists for a connector that couples circuit boards with one another using a cam shaft that may be more easily replaced with other cam shafts.